About the AREHNA Program
Building a Nursing & Midwifery Network of Early Career Researchers in Immigrant Health
“New Americans” (NA) are people who have come to live in the United States (US) for personal and work opportunities. They comprise 15% of the population, and 77% of them are naturalized citizens or legally present. The health of NAs is influenced by two distinct social drivers of health: nativity and migration experience. Nativity—meaning the country where a person was born—is a recognized social driver of health because where a person is born affects their health across their lifespan. A person's migration experience will strongly influence their health outcomes and those of their family members, including their children born in the United States.
NAs and their first-generation children born in the US may experience different health outcomes from their native-born counterparts, and sometimes these differences are masked when they are grouped with native-born people. Grouping, in general, oversimplifies the unique health needs and migration experiences of this population, thereby deterring the development of appropriate solutions.
Overall, the impact of nativity and migration on the health of NAs and their US-born children is understudied. Nonetheless, they are critically important for ensuring healthy populations across the lifespan, developing novel solutions to address them, and accurate measurement of health outcomes.
Within nursing, however, there is a dearth of researchers with the aforementioned skills needed to study NA populations and their family members, many of whom are US citizens. Thus, there is a critical need to build research capacity among nurse researchers to address the health needs of NAs, enabling the development of novel solutions and more precise measurement of health outcomes.
Over three years, this program will train at least 30 early-career nurse scientists (<7 years) through an interdisciplinary lens to study the influence of nativity and the migration experience within the context of NA populations. Core goals of the training include preparing trainees to: a) develop novel solutions to address health concerns and b) improve the precision of outcomes measurement of NA populations, which may also include their US-born family members. The program will help trainees understand the mechanisms across levels and domains of influence that lead to differences in NA health outcomes compared with those of their US-born counterparts. It may also help enhance our understanding of the health of US citizens of the same heritage as the NA, and whether solutions can be applied across the group or should be differentiated. By the end of the program, we will have created a national network of nurse researchers who will evolve into a cadre of national experts on the subject and will become poised to foster the next generation of nurse scientists in this area as they progress in their careers.
Participants will come to New York City for an all expenses paid week-long, intensive in-person training offered twice annually over three years. It will be followed by a three-month virtual mentoring program. Participants will also receive a small pilot grant as part of the program to support the development of their programs of research.
